Hi And Bye: A Very Quick Recipe

Argh!!! Exam season is upon me and I have only got a week before a major deadline AND my French speaking exam. Scarily, in a month's time I shall have finished my exams AND be half way through my degree *cue manic nail biting terror*. This means that my recipes will be uploaded somewhat erratically as it will be a nightmare few weeks but I do have a few posts up my sleeve for you pre-written to avoid me stressing out too much. On a brighter note, I got 67 in my last essay, which is worth 40% of one module's final mark - for those of you who aren't familiar with university marking - one teacher said she'd only ever given 80 once before and that was because she couldn't have sat down and written a better essay herself. 67 is equivalent to a high 2:1, which is great. I also had a presentation to do on Wednesday, so hopefully that went well, I think it did but I won't get the mark for a few weeks.

Pesto Take Two

As some of you may remember, I tried and failed to make pesto back in September. Last week I came across another pesto recipe and decided to try it so that I could make pesto and mozzarella tarts. In case it also failed, I bought a jar of ready made sauce! Well, I'm happy to report that this recipe (I think it was from delicious.) works perfectly, though I have changed the amount of parmesan as it was slightly overpowering. This does mean that the ingredients are now terribly easy to remember as they're all the same quantities or by eye.

You'll ideally use a a mini food processor for this but If you were feeling up to it a pestle and mortar should work too, just don't try to overload it. I promise that if you make this you won't regret it, or go back to jars as it only takes the amount of time the 10 minute pasta takes to cook.

Macaroni Cheese: Comfort Food At Its Finest

Sometimes, you just want cheesy comfort food. No, I don't mean corny, I mean with a huge pile of cheese in it. If you don't believe me then look at the picture!

 I made macaroni cheese based on a Soho House found online, which used parmesan as well as cheddar to form a lovely crust on top of the dish. The original recipe, however, used a lot more cheese than my version as I wanted to make it slightly healthier (425g of cheese for four people? I don't think so). I also like to have a bit of bite in the form of piquant chorizo in my macaroni but Soho House's recipe was true to the original meal. I made it because, after a tiring first week, I wanted something deliciously filling and treat-like for supper. Unusually, (for my mac and cheese recipes at least) this dish is placed under the grill rather than cooked in an oven.

Macaroni Cheese Recipe

Serves 4-5.

Preheat grill as hot as possible.

Use English mustard to bring out the flavour of the cheese.

Make sure the pasta is cooked al dente and no further as it will continue to cook once it has all been put together.

Ingredients

350g macaroni pasta

35g butter

35g plain flour

500ml milk (preferably full fat but other types are fine)

1 chorizo ring, diced small

110g (sauce) and 80g (topping) grated cheddar cheese

35g (sauce) 25g (topping) grated parmesan

½tbsp english mustard

Salt and pepper

Method

Cook pasta according to instructions until it is al dente (with a slight bite to it). Drain well and rinse with water so that the pieces don't stick together as they cool.

Fry chorizo in a pan until fragrant and oily.

Whilst the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a heavy based, grill-safe pan (I use a le cruset casserole) and then mix in the flour.

Slowly whisk in the milk and then allow to cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring all the time, until you have a thick-ish, smooth and glossy sauce, although it will thicken further in the oven so don't worry too much about that part of it.

Now add the sauce amounts of the two cheeses into the pan, along with the mustard and seasoning, and stir until the cheese is melted.

Add the cooked macaroni and chorizo to the sauce and mix well.

Mix the leftover (topping) cheese together and spread evenly over the top before placing the dish under the grill for 15 minutes until the mixture is golden and bubbling.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then serve.

What's your classic mac and cheese recipe?

i Dunderi

Earlier this year BBC had the show Two Greedy Italians on iPlayer. Bored one day, I decided to watch an episode, and it was great fun. Antonio Carluccio seemed like a cuddly teddy bear whilst Gennaro Contaldo cooked and chivvied Antonio along. One of the recipes was for ricotta dumplings in a spicy tomato sauce. I wanted to make it but it was too late that evening (about 10pm) and so I collared a couple of friends the next day and asked if they wanted to revise after class (ok, so I was procrastinating my exam revision when I watched the show). Grace said yes and came over for one of the first meals that was truly vegetarian and not a meat based recipe that I'd adapted. The i dunderi looked so tasty and simple on screen, and they are, in fact, delicious and not very complicated to make. I made them again last night and from start to finish the process probably took about an hour, maybe a little more. The recipe is generous and feeds two ravenous people or three fairly hungry ones. As my friend and I weren't very hungry last night, there were leftovers for lunch and they tasted just as good as they did yesterday. The only trouble with this recipe is that it generates a lot of leftover egg whites, I get around this by freezing them in a labeled container (don't forget to mark how many whites there are) or making lemon and poppy seed cake or meringues.

My recipe is slightly different to the original, mainly through some additions to the sauce. With regards to the chillies, you can always add more, but start with just one and go from there. A suggestion that I read in a foodie magazine the other day was to cut the chilli in half lengthways and then touch the tip to your tongue and that would give you an idea of the spiciness of it. I tried that yesterday and it worked quite well, it meant that I only used one chilli to start with and then tried the sauce before deciding that another one would help up the kick a bit more, rather than adding three in straight off.

The cut and very floured dumplings!

i dunderi recipe

Serves 2-3 people

Only use the parmesan if you are not vegetarian (my friend fortunately doesn't eat meat for taste reasons and not ethical ones, which is good as I've only recently discovered parmesan isn't vegetarian friendly, oops). If you are veggie then you need to find a substitute (according to the vegetarian society the approved ones are Bookham's Not Just A Pasta Cheese and Pamazano).

I bought the pasta flour from the deli section of the Carluccio restaurant in Spinningfields as the small supermarkets around here don't stock it (big ones should though).

If using a stand mixer, make the sauce whilst it's kneading, if kneading by hand make this after you've finished kneading.

Ingredients

Dumplings

200g pasta flour, also known as 00 flour, plus extra

225g ricotta cheese (I buy 250g pots and put the whole lot in - it works fine)

30g grated parmesan

3 egg yolks

Seasoning

Sauce

Large drizzle of olive oil

3 garlic cloves, crushed or finely diced

1+ chillies, very finely cut 

1 large onion, roughly chopped

800g (2x400g tins) chopped tomatoes

Lots of salt (add a little sugar if it gets too salty)

Pepper

Method

If you are using a stand mixer then place all the dumpling ingredients in the mixer's bowl and use the dough hook, if you don't have a stand mixer then use a large bowl and a spoon or hand held whisk with dough hook attachments.

Combine the ingredients and knead for 5-10 minutes, adding more flour if the dough is extremely sticky.

To make the sauce, heat up the olive oil in a large pan and soften the diced onion, garlic and chopped chilli before adding the tinned tomatoes and salt and pepper. Leave to simmer.

Onions, chilli and garlic softening in oil

To make the dumplings you need to roll a quarter of the dough at a time into a ball and cover the outside with flour to stop it from being sticky.

Roll the floured ball into a long sausage shape, about an inch in diameter, and cut widthways into centimetre wide oblongs. Add flour to the cut sides and place so they do not touch one another on a floured surface.

Repeat the steps with the other three quarters of the dough.

Check the seasoning and spice of the sauce and put a large pan of water on to boil.

When the water is boiling place the dumplings in it and run a spoon or something over the bottom of the pan to loosen any stuck dumplings.

When the dumplings float to the top they are cooked.

Scoop them out of the top of the water using a slotted spoon and place into the tomato sauce.

Once all the dumplings are in the sauce, toss them together and they are ready to serve.

Enjoy.